Welcome to Gaia! ::

Fig knew he was running a little late, he knew! But what was a fey to do when deciding on how to dress?! It was freezing out, but the festival activities were to take place indoors so he likely wouldn't be needing to travel about as though he was going to tackle traversing the tundra. Still, he had to get there! Thankfully, he figured out something to work out and made it out the door. Besides, there was someone waiting for him at the festival! Upon arriving, Fig paused inside the doorway, drinking in the hustle and bustle about the festival celebrating love in all forms. How wonderful! There were flowers about as well, a fine thing to find. Taking a moment to talk to one of folks ferrying around bundles of single roses and full bouquets roses. Turns out they were enchanted to never wilt. Fantastic! Opting for a full bouquet, Fig thanked the vendor before proceeding to pick his way through the crowd. He had a certain imp lass to find. Where was she? Ah, there she was. Spotting a familiar head of curly pink hair, Fig carefully wove his way through the crowd to lessen the distance between. Coming to within an arm's length, the fey man clasped his hands behind his back, bouquet in hand. "Cam, I'm pleased to see you've made it. Sorry if I kept you waiting. Were you here long?"



Perle had come along with their mother, who fortunately didn't have to actually work the festival, something about family leave, which was cool and gave the dryad a little happy shiver at the thought. Their adoptive mom was being given time off to spend with them, like any other blood family would. Sure, they missed their friends from the orphanage, but their mom helped keep them in touch by bringing letters or pictures to and fro should she find herself at way through work. And now, here they were, rather bundled up and attending the Hunter's Jubilee, which was blessedly indoors. While their mom paused to chat with one of the book peddling people, Perle's eye was caught by a passing tray of numerous pretty stones. The youngster gasped and flagged the holder of the tray down. "Um, excuse me, would it be alright if I could have one of those, please?" There were other folks walking around with some, so it couldn't hurt to ask! An affirmation drew a bright smile to the young dryad's features. "Oh, thank you! I think I would like," They paused to look over each variant of stone there was available. "This one, please," They said while pointing out a pretty little chunk of rhodochrosite. The stone felt a little cool in their hands, but quickly warmed from being cupped in the palms of their hands.

As Freddy weaved with Nef through the crowd he resolved to work harder on his ability to fade. It would have come mightily in handy when getting through a crowd. He placed it on his mental list of things to do, right below practicing his stretching.

When Nef suddenly paused he looked to see what had caught her attention, then grinned. This looked like it could be loads of fun! "Good luck Nef," he cheered as the Bakeneko stepped forward to toss some rings. He applauded enthusiastically when she made the first throw; the clink of glass was as satisfying as the dull thud of bean bags, and he wondered he if should give this throwing game a shot himself when Nef was done.

He bite his lip when Nef missed her second throw. "You got this Nef," he called encouragingly as she prepared for her final throw. The sound of a solid hit caused Freddy to cheer. The man who handed Nef the rings took down a sealpup plushie at Nef's prompting. He laughed a bit when Nef put it on his head, and reached up to hold onto the flippers and keep it in place. "You got yourself a deal," he agreed happily.

The sound of another voice caused him to turn. Another Bakeneko was approaching them. Most of their attention seemed to be on Nef, but it didn't bother Freddy in the slightly. "Hey there," he cheerfully greeted the other. "You should totally let Nef play for you. She's got awesome aim!"

Darrah shared the last of his brownies with his new Coatl as she loosely wrapped herself around his neck and rested on his shoulder. A couple minutes later, a game drew his interest. The object was to build towers with those conversation hearts and the person with the highest tower at the end of the time won a plushie. Darrah smirked; he was confident that he could do this, easy. Setting his plushies on the floor by the last empty chair, Darrh climbed up and waited for the go before carefully building a tower of hearts. Thirty seconds later, Darrah walked away with yet another plushie under his arm.

The next game Nasrin came upon was kind of cute, in his opinion. There was a giant heart shaped landing pad on the floor, and a group of kids were tossing paper airplanes at it to see who could get closest to the center. Nasrin walked up in time to join the next group of players. He concentrated hard on the center of the heart, his tongue peeking out one side of his mouth as he aimed. After a moment he let go and somehow managed to land his plane, or "love bird", right on top of someone else's! They were both the closest to the center though, so they both got prizes.

Well it was good to see that neither Female was actually hurt. It looked more like mai had taken most of the brunt of their collision and other than his sister being terribly embarrassed she didn’t seem to be too hurt. Festivals it always seemed where destined to be crazy. He had heard about the last one about how people had gotten throw happy. Somehow he had a feeling this one was going to be about the same.

“Well I’m glad no serious damage was done. I agree that these festivals definitely get crowded especially since as of late we seem to be having them around the time that some new race seems to be visiting.” Vanna commented. After all first it had been the day dreams and now the neko and naga…. He wasn’t surprised that more people weren’t bumping into each other. Of course he spoke a bit too soon and he had to let out a small wince as a flying plushie hit him in the back of the head. Hmm well he did have to give them points. Maybe he could go home and tell Yami he was almost assassinated by plushies today. Yami was sure to make an awesome face.




Mai stared at the ground to keep from blushing although she definitely failed in that respect. Ah she should have totally watched where she was going. First impressions where important, or at least she had come to notice they were often important and setting yourself up as clumsy or unobservant was a mess. Plus she had disrupted whatever the nice lady was doing… However she did take both her brother and Mytrax’s hand when she stood up. She dusted off the bottom of her skirt not noticing that someone had taken pity on the girl and slipped a rose in her bag.

“I’m soo sorry about that. I’m glad you’re okay” Mai replied. Oh that was right. Her fellow Chimera had asked if she was okay. Well nothing was bruised physically at least. “I-I’m okay. Thank you for asking”




Leto was at least happy that he was making a good impression on Sprinkles if the protective growl was anything to go by but he also didn’t want to cause Jaden trouble. Chani was already being a handful and he needed to convince her to let him pick her up soon or she was going to trip him… that or rip up his plushies. She was already trying to go for his pocket to get to the first plushie. Deciding to take the life of his sweater into his hands he scooped up the very much protesting vespercat… ah Anubis had never been this much trouble at home.

Of course right as Leto agreed that they needed to get inside especially since he was already hit twice, another plushie hit him on the forehead. His lower lip wibbled a bit as a result. Luckily he kept his hold on Chani this time… but there was no calming the now constantly hissing verspercat… ah he really needed to get inside. Why where they throwing things at him… there had to be another pitiful looking freshling that needed plushies around. Still he grabbed that one, barely noticing Spice landing back on his head.

"I'm getting an umbrella the first thing we do when we get to safety"

Jaden managed to make it to the safety of the building without getting attacked by any more flying plushies, though from the commotion he head behind him Leto hadn't been so lucky. He turned to look (though he kept walking, to keep Sprinkles occupied), and saw his friend stooping down to pick up a pink nezubat plushie while clutching a livid Chani. Finally they were able to catch up, and everyone was inside.

"Thank goodness! Let's head back to the room before people get it in their head to throw plushies by hand inside. Maybe we should try to leave our familiars in the room, just in case," he added as they started through the halls of the Academy.



[quote"Nasaiki"]

Had Burvia done something wrong? Rae seemed unusually nervous and the girl was stammering out of control. Had she intruded? Was Rae ... trying to pick her up.

She had been about to find some reason to excuse herself as swiftly as she had come between the two. She had felt so embarrassed, especially if Rae was trying to flirt with the girl. Had Burvia been misreading all of Esrael's signals? Had their date nights meant nothing ... ?

Burvia opened her mouth slowly to say something as Esrael took the ring, but when he handed her the locket her eyes glossed over. She reached her hands out to accept the locket, dainty in her hands, the metal cool as she smiled sweetly at the gesture. Her heart felt warm, and her fingers were tingling from how good the gesture made her feel. Then Esrael told her what he had planned -- to put a picture of both Esrael and Joseth in the locket, and her heart slammed against her chest, making her light headed and weak in the knees.

Maybe she hadn't been misreading his signals at all ... maybe there was something there after all.

"Oh ... Esrael ... " her tone was oddly soft. More quiet, more young sounding. And once again she felt like a freshling, clutching the locket between her hands and brought her clasped hands to her lips, smiling behind her hands.

"Thank you ... " she whispered in a hush, moving to put the locket on immediately. She would never take it off ...

Burvia turned her attention to the other girl, as if she hadn't just had that moment with Esrael. "I'm so sorry if I came off as a bit domineering!" she apologized. "It's a pleasure to meet you! I'm Burvia, but you know that already by now from Esrael's stammering~!"